looks at life for women of a certain age. Observations and wry stories that might ring bells with some.

Tuesday, 28 October 2014

If Looks could Kill....

Some of the wires in a 747 cockpit

We've had quite a stressful month fixing up the repairs necessary on the new apartment we bought after we sold our house recently. One of the jobs my husband thought essential was to replace two of the worn-looking solid plates on the old-fashioned stove-top. The stove is a Defy 600 and so my husband bought the parts and did the job himself. Each plate seemed to me to have about four wires. Having put the hob back together, I ventured to ask if my husband had put all the wires back in the correct places. (This after we had tested all the plates and the oven and they were all working). Did I mention that in another life my husband was an aircraft technician, having worked for 19 years at South African Airways and having served a rigorous apprenticeship of 5 years. This pic I found on Google is of a cockpit with all the wires in their correct places. You should see one where they are all hanging loose! I couldn't find the photo we had of such a chaotic scene - I think he took it one day at work in the days before Internet and digital stuff. Suffice it to say that a scornful look was all I received in response to my ill-advised question. He has just finished re-jigging the springs on the roll-up garage door re the same flat (the repairmen hadn't done it correctly). We are finally at home and I can't wait for Thursday when our two lady tenants move in. At the moment the current worry is that the flat above us, where we live now, is leaking water into our kitchen and bathroom ceilings. Does it ever end? I shall be so thankful when we have finally retired in December and moved to our well-built house at the lagoon.

Another thing your husband and I have in common besides loving wonderful women, I worked on aircraft in the Air Force (not for 19 years though). We didn't have quite that much wiring, the plane was a lot smaller, F-4 Phantom II, but yes there was a lot of wiring in those planes with a lot of black boxes hooked up to them. I was an Avionics Instrument Tech.

I learned not to give my wife the look though, nothing would guarantee that I made a mistake faster than the look. Hubris is the mother of many a crow sandwich. The woman is in command of the black arts.

Interesting the kinds of jobs people have in their lives. My list is not very impressive (other than in length). viz. waitress, cashier, bar chef, aspirant model, teacher, secretary, purveyor of sex toys, admin assistant (one notch up from secretary), granny, more or less in that order.

Your list has some interesting highlights one of which required a working knowledge of micro electro-mechanical applications, engineered spatial topology, elastomers, polymers, non-petroleum based tribology, neuroscience, neuro-topography, microbiology, pH, vaso-congestion, gynecology, urology, safety engineering, as well as developing detailed end user methodologies. If your purveying included a line of garments then you would also have a working knowledge of textiles, colors, fashion design, suspension mechanics, and a pretty good handle on male psychology. Quite actually you were something of a polymath.

Yes - all of the above. I forgot to mention the comedy factor in the above - not to mention a working knowledge of the male psyche. I used to thoroughly enjoy the demonstrations, did my comedy turns and I have to admit we used to fall about laughing. Sales of our top-line vibrators were always brisk.